Archinect - News

Michael Maltzan Guest DJ's on Santa Monica's KCRW

2013-04-10T18:29:00-04:00

Architect Michael Maltzan has designed prestigious museums, luxurious private residences and social housing in Downtown LA. Music has been a factor in his life since he first started to discover architecture and he ruminates on the connection between the two art forms while sharing songs from Big Star, Talking Heads and more.

Track list:

The Bad Plus - Long Distance Runaround
Talking Heads - The Big Country
Big Star - The Ballad Of El Goodo
PJ Harvey - We Float
Glen Campbell - There's No Me Without You

NPR talks to McGill professor about China's architectural knock-off of Zaha's Wangjing Soho

2013-01-04T13:07:00-05:00

China is also the land of the knock-off: knock-off designer handbags, knock-off blockbuster movies on DVDs, etc. But now, it seems the knock-off has gone off the charts in terms of proportion: entire buildings.

As we have previously mentioned, Zaha Hadid is the latest victim of piracy in China, with a upcoming copy of her Wangjing Soho complex... scheduled to be completed before the original. NPR explores this issue with McGill architecture prof Avi Friedman.

FRANCES ANDERTON - Architectural Critic

2012-03-24T11:28:37-04:00

Frances Anderton came to Los Angeles via Bath, England in 1991 and like her compatriot Reyner Banham, fell in love with the city. As a longtime producer and host of radio shows Which Way, LA? and DnA: Design and Architecture respectively, Anderton has spent the last 25 years of her professional and personal life exploring the relationship between L.A.'s architecture, politics and design.

KCRW's DNA interviews Moby on LA architecture

2012-03-23T18:44:00-04:00

Chances are, you know Moby best for his electronic dance music. But it turns out the eclectic-minded musician has another life, as an architecture buff who recently moved to LA and now writes a blog about buildings here he loves. The blog is called, simply, Moby Los Angeles Architecture Blog, and features his photos of local architecture. Frances Anderton talks to Moby about his love of architecture.

And, on that note, I promise this will be the last we refer to Moby's over-hyped move into the world of architecture blogging.

Craig Hodgetts at KCRW Guest DJ Project

2012-03-07T18:54:00-05:00

Craig Hodgetts credits the “unencumbered and exceedingly emotional” style of Miles Davis for shaping the direction of his architectural work. He also names the sounds of Vangelis and Terry Riley as inspirations in a guest DJ set that is a tribute to all kinds of creative work.

Architect Craig Hodgetts, of LA design firm Hodgetts + Fung, is being featured today at KCRW's Guest DJ Project.

American Icons: Monticello

2012-02-17T14:46:00-05:00

Monticello is home renovation run amok. Thomas Jefferson was as passionate about building his house as he was about founding the United States; he designed Monticello to the fraction of an inch and never stopped changing it. Yet Monticello was also a plantation worked by slaves, some of them Jefferson’s own children. Today his white and black descendants still battle over who can be buried at Monticello. It was trashed by college students, saved by a Jewish family, and celebrated by FDR.

Is Steve Jobs the Model for a Revived Economy?

2011-08-30T18:22:19-04:00

Steve Jobs has the right name for what's missing in America's economy. Does he also represent the way back to prosperity? We look at his record at Apple and its influence in the US and around the world.

KCRW's "To the Point" addresses Steve Jobs' attention to innovation and integration of design into Apple's business model, and how that can improve the state of today's horrible job market.

Architecture of the Absurd

2011-07-22T19:07:53-04:00

Star architects such as Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, and Daniel Leibiskind have created sensations with singular, unconventional designs that look (and sometimes are) unbuildable. John Silber thinks that’s a problem. He’d like to see our buildings showing less individualism, more standards. Silber is the former president of Boston University and the author of Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art.